sandyw@wvgazette.com
It looks more like a painting than a photograph. Amid a colorful,swirling smear of flailing arms and legs, the image of Michael Jordanis unmistakable.
A muscular shoulder shiny with sweat gleams in the defining light.He cups the basketball in one hand, ready to make his move - a splitsecond forever captured by a lens with a lazy shutter speed.
'He was playing against the Atlanta Hawks during the 1990-91season when I started covering the NBA,' said the photographer, ChrisHamilton. 'I felt compelled to do something different than a pictureof somebody dunking a basketball.'
A 4-by-6-inch lithograph of the time-lapse photograph will be upfor grabs at the 12th annual spring auction to benefit the GreaterKanawha Valley Mental Health Association May 10 at Berry Hills CountyClub.
A nationally recognized sports photographer based in Atlanta, Ga.,the 50-year-old Hamilton is the son of Betty Hamilton of Charlestonand the late Paul Hamilton. He donated the lithograph to the mentalhealth event.
Bidders may need a fat billfold. During an auction to raise fundsfor the Atlanta Hawks, a picture he shot of Magic Johnson and MichaelJordon sold for $10,000.
'Evander Holyfield wanted it, and so did Dominique Wilkins,'Hamilton said. 'They got into a bidding war. Evander won it, and Isigned it for him.'
Created with Hamilton's signature time-lapse technique, the motion-streaked photograph shows Magic leaping under the basket with theball cradled in one hand.
'Michael Jordan is on the side, and on the other side is JamesWorthy. It looks like Bill Cartwright is going to block the shot.It's mesmerizing because everyone watching the play has their eyes onMagic with their mouths open. What's he going to do? Nobody's talkingto the person beside them. It's like a ballet. Everyone's just intheir seats, watching.'
The photograph appeared in Sports Illustrated. So did the picturehe contributed to the May 10 auction. 'That's one of the pictures Ishowed to Sports Illustrated to get the assignment,' Hamilton said.
'The assignment,' as he so casually puts it, launched his career.In 1991, the most famous of all sports magazines asked Hamilton toshoot the 1991 NBA finals. His photographs appeared in a 12-pagespread in the magazine's NBA playoff preview the following year. Theyalso used shots he took of regular-season play.
'It all took off from there,' he said. 'It was like buying 12pages of advertising in Sports Illustrated.'
Now, credits for Chris Hamilton Photography include the WorldSeries, the Super Bowl, NASCAR, the Olympics, World ChampionshipWrestling and the Indy 500. His client list sounds like a corporatewho's who. Eastman Kodak, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Nike, Reebok,Mattel, the Atlanta Braves.
The U.S. Sports Academy named him Sports Photographer of the Year.The Art Institute of Atlanta named him its Most Distinguished Alumni.
His photographs appeared in the Nikon House Exhibition in New YorkCity and in the book, 'Visions of Glory - a Century of SportsPhotography.'
And so on.
Much of the acclaim stems from his time-lapse photography. Heintentionally blurs his photographs, giving them a streaked,surrealistic look without losing definition.
'Some people call it motion photography,' he said during aninterview from his Atlanta office. 'It's just a longer shutter speedinstead of being instant. Whatever is going on in the camera in thatsegment of time is recorded, so it's not a sharp image.'
He tweaked the process until he got it right, then took somesamples to a professor at the Atlanta Art Institute, his alma mater.'We decided to go straight to Sports Illustrated with them. I didn'twant to look back and wish I had if I started with someone else.'
His wife, Rita, a business major, arranged the meeting with SportsIllustrated staffers. After they saw his work, they assigned the '91NBA playoffs.
'So out of the blue, there I was, sitting at the end of the courtphotographing Magic and Michael. I was at the end of the court whenMichael did that famous thing with one hand up looking like he wasgoing to dunk the ball and then switching hands for a layup.Unfortunately, the referee blocked half my view.'
How could a kid growing up on Charleston's Gordon Drive imaginesuch a heady future? He didn't even own a camera.
'But I remember being interested in it. When we went on our sixth-grade patrol trip to Washington, I took tons of photographs with mysister's camera. That was my initial photography. I didn't have adecent camera until college.
'My mom was always into art,' he said, 'so I felt I had prettygood taste. When I had a camera in my hand, that came through, firstwith scenic landscapes and sunsets, which I still do.'
He traces his love for sports to his early years in Charleston. 'Iplayed on George Washington High School's champion tennis team andplayed basketball at Christ Methodist. I'm a big sports fan, all theway back to the Charleston Rockets.'
The sports/photography combination nearly lost out to a career inarchitecture or mechanical engineering. He started college at Clemsonas an architecture major but graduated with a degree in engineering.He married Rita fresh out of college and they moved to Greensboro,N.C. She worked in marketing. He worked as a mechanical engineer. Helasted one year.
The photography bug bit him in college and wouldn't let go. 'I hada show of scenics in college, and I shot a football game for anassignment ...
'I decided to go into photography. I felt I was in a no-losesituation. If I went to Atlanta to photography school and wanted toquit, I could always turn around and get an engineering job. So I hada lot of insurance.'
He started Chris Hamilton Photography with his wife after hegraduated from art school. For 10 years, he specialized inarchitecture photography. 'But I got burned out. So I startedshooting sports. About that time, they announced the Olympics werecoming to Atlanta, and everything took off.'
He's the official photographer for the Paralympic Games, an eventfor athletes with physical disabilities. It's the world's second-largest sporting event and follows the Olympics by several weeks atthe same site.
'When Atlanta got the Olympics, they also got the Paralympics.There isn't a good source of photographers for disabled sports, sothey asked me to go to the Barcelona Paralympics, and if it workedout, I would do Atlanta.'
It worked out. After Barcelona and Atlanta, he covered the eventin Sydney and Athens. The contestants inspire him. 'It's fascinatingbecause it's like sports used to be, when people do it because theyreally love it, not because they're going to be a millionaire. It'sthe real thing.
'After the Paralympics, I don't complain about small stuff for atleast two or three months.'
Every sport he covers has special challenges, he said. 'WithNASCAR, there's a lot of walking involved to get to the spot you needto be in. With baseball, the play may happen at the plate or it mayhappen at second base, or there might be a fly ball two feet in frontof you. It's hard to figure out what's going to happen next. Withbasketball, you know they're going to be back from the other end ofthe court in 42 seconds.'
He covers NASCAR for Autoweek magazine and other clients. Hisposters of Jeff Gordon and Bill Elliott are sold on ESPN. 'I havefriends with infield camping spots at Atlanta and Darlington,' hesaid, 'so I get a slice of the infield life.'
Other items on the auction block for the Mental Health Associationbenefit include a Porsche Cayman, a Bahamas cruise and a sternwheelerlithograph by boat artist Michael Blaser, 'Three Ladies ofCharleston.'
For additional information, call the Greater Kanawha Valley MentalHealth Association at 340-3512.
To contact staff writer Sandy Wells, use e-mail or call 348-5173.
